If Detroit Rebounds, Robert Slattery
Should Receive Some of the Credit

By

Jess McCuan and

Joseph B. White Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Sept. 13, 1999 12:01 a.m. ET

DETROIT -- When developer Robert Slattery decided to buy and restore the once-elegant Venn building here in 1981, he didn't expect to make a quick killing. For starters, there was a bit of work to be done: gaping holes in the walls and ceilings, and a raft of live pigeons trapped in cabinets by former tenants so poor that they'd planned to dine on them.

Beyond that, the 70-year-old apartment building stood in one of downtown Detroit's poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods. But surely, Mr. Slattery thought, the...